PeopleSoft eProcurement 2.0 extends enterprise systems to B2B exchanges
and the Commerce One Global Trading Web. The PeopleSoft solution delivers
authorized purchasing capabilities to employees and leverages organizations'
buying power with preferred suppliers. A Website-like interface encourages
users to take advantage of the solution without having to be trained,
thus potentially lowering the total cost of ownership.

The
application allows users to cut implementation time and cost by linking
with PeopleSoft enterprise systems via newly developed Enterprise Integration
Points. New integration touch points leverage a common set of business
rules included in PeopleSoft's Payables, Projects, Asset Management, and
Receiving, as well as Purchasing and Human Resources components.

Market
Impact

"PeopleSoft eProcurement 2.0 is PeopleSoft's latest on-ramp to B2B," said
Mike Frandsen, vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft's supply
chain division. "The solution's Internet-based integration capabilities
link organizations' enterprise systems to B2B exchanges quickly and cost
effectively. The application's ease of use allows large organizations
to fully leverage their buying power. The end result is the opportunity
to dramatically reduce procurement costs."

PeopleSoft's
has taken a slightly different approach in comparison to its competitor
SAP. SAP's "mySAP.com" has chosen to build and define their own marketplace
based on existing clients. Through their "Business Directory" SAP intends
to create its own exchange with connectivity to outside exchanges as a
secondary objective. In contrast, PeopleSoft's eProcurement 2.0 is actively
addressing and leveraging connectivity to external marketplaces. In the
long term, this discussion is moot. Inevitably clients will demand connectivity
to all exchanges that benefit their company. In the short term, ERP vendors
continue to develop, or partner, in an effort to deliver full service
procurement solutions.

User
Recommendations

If you are considering PeopleSoft's eProcurement 2.0 offering, investigate
their latest development carefully. Integration of multi-lingual and multi-currency
support is no small challenge. Out of the box, it is important to understand
what features (languages) are supported. Before implementing, we recommend
understanding how the currencies are synchronized across the applications.
With markets and currency valuations fluctuating on a daily basis it is
important to understand how the application normalizes data. The availability
of multi-lingual and multi-currency capabilities from PeopleSoft is attractive,
however it is important to understand the depth and complexity of their
latest offering.